Digestive Intelligence – Dr. Matveikova

Irina Matveikova, MD, is a Spanish board-certified physician in family medicine. She specialises in endocrinology and clinical nutrition and is a certified expert in eating disorders.

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Matveikova undertook postgraduate studies in natural and holistic medicine in several countries around the world and has extensive international experience teaching in those medical institutions and foundations.

As a result of her postgraduate studies, research and teaching, Dr. Matveikova became a firm believer in the need for a more harmonious relationship between natural and conventional medical approaches. She is now at the forefront of this field in Spain. She is the author of numerous published articles about digestive health and functional nutrition.

Digestive Intelligence, tells the fascinating story of how our digestive systems are best described as our ‘second brain’ – and how so much of what we think and how we live emotionally are actually influenced by our stomachs! Not surprising that this area has so much influence when you consider there is something equivalent to the size of a small football pitch hiding inside our bellies – that’s the incredible magnitude of our digestive systems.

Irina explains, in straightforward layman’s language, that the digestive system contains more than one million neurons, identical to those in the brain and is responsible for producing 90% of the body’s hormone, serotonin, the all-important hormone which makes us feel happy and full of wellbeing. It follows that, if our stomach is ‘out of sorts’ we feel irritable and lacking in energy, those feelings block our intellectual capacity and productivity, disorientating us in the process and in turn completely change our thought patterns and physical processes. This book offers a useful insight into the unique relationship between the brain and digestive intelligence.